Here’s the text of an email I received last night in response to my post about the Maryland governor from my personal pet troll, Robert O’Brien:

Thanks for the news; it brought a smile to my face, as do all victories against the institutionalization/legitimization of deviant sexuality. Your inferior morality masquerading as evolved sensibilities was also good for a laugh. As for your reference to Jesus, you need to read the New Testament again (or, more appropriately, have it read to you); homosexuality is expressly forbidden therein.

Sincerely,

Robert O’Brien

Is it any wonder why I named the Idiot of the Month Award after this cretin? Think about the mindset of someone like this. Because the bible says homosexuality is wrong, gay people must be denied everything, even the smallest bit of comfort that would come from having the person they love by their side at the end of their lives. This goes far beyond moral disapproval; it is simply cruelty and viciousness under a thin veneer of self-righteousness. If you disapprove of homosexuality, fine; lots of people do. But if you use that as an excuse to inflict pain on them, then you are sick and sadistic and motivated solely by bigotry. And they have the audacity to clothe themselves in the language of morality. To hell with them, and all like them.

“I’d also point out that all the anti-homosexual bigotry in the New Testament comes from Paul. As does most of the anti-women bigotry. No wonder he’s so popular with the fundies.”

That is correct, Ginger.

The Gospel of Paul was written by one who never met Jesus in the flesh, which makes me wonder why anybody thinks his understanding of the teachings of Jesus is any more valid than those disciples who were actually there with him.

“As for your reference to Jesus, you need to read the New Testament again (or, more appropriately, have it read to you); homosexuality is expressly forbidden therein.”

It is so irritating to read this assertion again and again. Homosexuality is not expressly forbidden by Paul’s words in the NT. It’s time to stop letting fundamentalists make untrue claims about the bible. As a matter of fact, I would suggest to any fundies who are about to contradict me that you pick up an actual bible and actually read the NT, (starting with the gospels!) Then when you get to Romans, calmly try to read all the words in the first chapter and try to convince yourself Paul’s point is to ban homosexuality.

I don’t make a habit of defending the apostle Paul, but I believe that all of the anti-women material laid at Paul’s feet actually comes from books that scholars judge not to have been written by Paul himself, but by later writers trying to use his name to give authority to their arguments. I think the genuine Pauline epistles show a rather different, and better, attitude toward women.

Paul mentions homosexuality only a few times, each time using very specific terms that, from the Koine Greek, make divining his meaning somewhat problematic. (Paul was extremely well-educated in both the Greek and Jewish worlds — he studied under Gamaliel in Hillel’s school before his later association with the Sadducean powers — and his Greek is very cultured and refined, with constant use of philosophical terms of art and wordplay upon terms of art. Paul *always* mean precisely what he said, but our understanding rarely has that same clarity.)

It is clear that Paul, like the Jews of the OT, associated homosexuality with cultic practices, and that, more particularly, Paul sees homosexuality as the result of cultism rather than as an orientation (see Romans). In early Christianity, Justin Martyr condemns homosexuality as a cultic practice, while Athenagoras mentions it once in passing in a more general condemnation of sexual promiscuity in culture. I have no been able to find any other references in early Christian writings save that of Polycarp which, as usual with his writings, is simply a reference without discussion to Paul, and thus adds nothing to our knowledge.

I believe that there exists no independent Biblical basis for condemning homosexuality apart from idolatry. Certainly, there is less Biblical invective against homosexuality than there is against divorce, and all mainstream Protestant traditions have made their peace with that activity long ago. Many disagree with that stance quite honestly, and I respect their positions. However, more disagree with it out of parochial prejudice, which is something quite different.